The news says that the Earth will reach a ‘tipping’ point in 2025. It will be a point of no return. For the past couple of years, there have been the occasional report of a similar nature.

I argue that we have already past it. We use up materials and resources faster than we can replace them. Some resources are not replaceable. I remember reading, not so very long ago, that some computer parts manufacturers are looking for new materials that can do some of the things that the existing materials do because we are running out of some of those minerals that have desirable properties.

The world has spent over 20 years trying to get all the countries to agree on something, anything, that will slow down the damage humanity is doing to the global ecosystem. Nothing ever happens. When they do occasionally agree on measures, they put the Due By date way out there and by the time it arrives, some other administration has decided to override it. To change something so they can back out of it.

If governments can come to any real agreement and put it into place right now, I don’t thing it is enough to reverse the problems as they exist. On the monetary front alone, it will probably completely destroy what is left of a very fragile economy.

Some ‘experts’ are saying we don’t’ really need to worry about it since we can overcome any repercussions through human innovation. But that is only if people want to change and there is little evidence that supports it.

Oh, some people are going green. Some people have created businesses to try to creatively reuse garbage to reduce the impact on the environment. But businesses and corporations are the ones saying that the changes to protect the environment cost too much, even though they are the very ones tying up most of the world’s money. The time frames were supposed to be for the companies to set aside the money, get the renovations under way, and spread out the costs over time, in order to minimize the financial impact. But they never did it.

Maybe that is the real reason so many science fiction writers are writing about dark futures where the world is falling apart rather than writing about hopeful futures and creating new concepts to inspire scientists to create and advance their fields. It’s because they, like me, see how things have been going and have no faith in big business and governments to make the changes needed to save the planet and save humanity.

We see a world creating its own death. Although I have more hope for the earth than I do for the human race. I see the world becoming worse, the middle class in advanced countries will continue to slide, and we will end up with a bizarre mix of high tech toys and third world quality of life. Although it isn’t that bizarre as writers have been describing that very thing for many decades.
Either there will have to be measures put into place to control population growth and people will resent a draconian government or people will continue to reproduce at an ever expanding rate. If the former, there could be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe. Fewer people mean resources do farther. But at the same time, fewer people mean not as many people are purchasing stuff. The economic structure will probably have to change. But if it is the later, we will probably see the increase in disease and perhaps plague.

This will wipe people out and result in the same reduced population. But it will probably be far more catastrophic in nature and lead to a fall of civilization.

In the end, I think something will happen that will wipe out large chunks of the human race. I don’t think it will happen overnight. So people won’t really believe it is going on. I think it may take a few generations. And after it collapses, I believe those who remain will rebuild. Only I don’t have a high regard for humanity. So I don’t think people will have learned a lesson. I think it will take more generations to rebuild and people are people and will probably go through the same processes.

It reminds me of a short story by Asimov called ‘Nightfall’. It was a great little story about how a race lived on a planet in a cluster of suns. They never had night. They never had darkness. When a rare eclipse occurred, it was so catastrophic that society collapsed. There was archeological evidence of such repeated collapses. But the time between events was such a long period that people couldn’t understand the evidence. The result was that they never learned to adapt and anticipate the event and instead kept following an identical path of growth, development, progress, and collapse.

Wow. This might be a rather depressing blog. Sorry about that. But that’s where my mind went today.